BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington   Stockbridge   West Stockbridge

 MEET AND CONFER

 DISTRICT OFFICE – STOCKBRIDGE

 October 1, 2015

Present:                                                 

 School Committee:  S. Bannon, R. Bradway, A. Potter, R. Dohoney, R. Clark, J. St  Peter, D. Weston, K. Piasecki,

 Administration:  P. Dillon, S. Harrison,

 Staff/ Public:  S. Estelle, H. Bellow, R. Coons, E. Mooney, M. Loubert, T. Cowgill

 Absent:

 School Committee:       C. Shelton, W. Fields

 List of Distributed Documents:  Regional Agreement; Process to Amend Regional Agreement – Massachusetts Associations of Regional Schools (MARS)

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

 

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order at 7:04PM.

The listing of agenda items are those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting.  Not all items listed may in fact be discussed, and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. 

The meeting began with introductions:

Two consultants from Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) were present

Brian Mc Dermott – former superintendent, financial support

Mac Reid – Groton Dunstable, lots of roles there

Acton-Boxborough personnel, interim superintendent, Shirley

Who are you?  What town are you from?  What’s your goal for the regional amendment agreement process?

Bannon – up to date, clean up, maybe find consensus on a better way of sharing costs or put it to rest

Bradway – echo what Steve has to say, equitable distribution of costs

Potter – clean up, potential agreements

Dohoney – clean up, equity, serve for next 10-20 years and major changes,

Clark – echo, up to date and legal, easier to modify going forward, size of school committee?

St. Peter – echo, clean up and modernize, solution for that all 3 towns agree to, no further division

Piasecki – clean up, exploration

Weston – does not have agenda

Harrison – focus on education of the community, communication of process

 

Process and Details:

Reid – difference between fair and equal and equitable

Can we substitute fair of equitable?

Clark – who owns the agreement?

Reid – 10% petition or school committee

Regional agreement amendment is a sub-committee of school committee

Then if you accept, all three towns would need to vote on it

 

See attachment

 

Recommend at a special town meeting as opposed to a regular town meeting

Potter – one vote?

Reid – yes, up or down

Towns vote on same night recommended

Reid – other issues?

St. Peter  — is everything on the table?

Reid – yes,

Weston – legal amendments, what if we don’t agree

Reid – yes

Bradway – can you do vote one on compliance and vote two on equity, it would be nice to be legal if not equitable

 

4 School Committee members 2 GB, 1 WS, 1 S

1 selectman

1 finance each town

2 GB

3 Stockbridge

3 West Stockbridge

 

Dohoney — since we represent all three towns could we

Bannon — balance representation with size

Weston – waiting two weeks is ok

Potter moves to vote-to-vote, Piasecki 2nd

5 to 3 to vote Dohoney, St Peter and Weston opposed

Weston — is 18 big but ok, representation is ok

St Peter — 3 from each town ok

Weston – disenfranchised town is GB, every town has a veto, consensus is only way, numbers wont make a difference

Reid – potentially 3 sub committees – finance, language, forward thinking

Dohoney – are we saying actual members or designee?  Town Managers?

Reid – designee is up to group we ask

Clark – motion form regional agreement amendment committee

Member or designee

1S, 1 WS, 2 GB

1 fin com

1 Select Board

3, West Stockbridge and Stockbridge and 2 Great Barrington

 

Second by Potter

Bannon – likes Weston’s argument to 3 from each town, selectmen not designee

Withdraw motion Clark, Potter withdraws

Weston

Sub committee of School Committee to be regional  amendments

 

1S, 1 WS, 2 GB

1 fin

1 Select Board

3 citizens from each town —

Bradway seconded

Rich to amend – seconded Weston for discussion

Select Board recommend or nominate at large members

 

2 in favor – Dohoney and Weston

6  opposed

amendment failed

Dohoney — we need to let go of this at some point, nomination by select boards

All in favor 7 – Dohoney opposed

Reid – you could compromise

Committees will organize themselves

Bradway – time frame for soliciting volunteers

November 5th decision day

Nov 12th 6pm  — first meeting date

Clark – who would be interested in serving?

Bannon, Dohoney, Clark not interested

Towns voting in fall of 2016

Dohoney – has concerns around fall special town meeting

Bannon – shares concerns, tentative fall of 2016

Coons – it was previously done at special town meetings

Dohoney – decision may be best made at sub-committee level

Bannon – how long for DESE to respond?

Reid – Chris Lynch will respond, two or three weeks

O’Brien – I will look into timing

Clark – have consultants correct language

Bannon – we need to do funding

Piasecki – questions about timing

2.5 month on review, holidays, etc.

Weston — can the committee decide timeline

Bradway – timeline needs to be governed by subcommittee

Potter – can we agree on not later than?

Bradway – there’s a momentum

Bannon – I want a long deadline

Dohoney – rely on committee, don’t dictate out process

Bannon – let’s move ahead

Reid – rely on committee, it will get done as soon as it gets done

Community has to be involved, committee needs to make adjustments based on what its heard, those ideas should be incorporated

Open meetings, subject to open meeting law

Dohoney – recommendations

Reid – open mind, willing to listen

O’Brien – it will take time, editors are helpful, be transparent and straightforward around finances

Reid – bottom line on all of these is money

Weston – do you find yourself in role as mediator

Dohoney – have you been part or process requesting special relief

Discussion of white paper

Clark – we cannot rely on them to solve our problems

Bannon – we shouldn’t quit task force

Mooney – are we going to endorse white paper?

No motion on table

Bannon – the asked for comments

Bannon – any other discussion

Dohoney – updates on SBSSP?  Lee?  SBRSD or FRRSD?

Bannon – yes, we need an agenda – Lee –superintendent, we need consensus, collaboration, consolidation, nice détente?

Weston – two districts we’re sharing services with?  Richmond psychologist

Dohoney – shocked that sending districts don’t connect with us

Weston – Lee-Tyringham

Dillon – collaboration and consolidation

Clark – what do people mean by equity and fairness?

Bannon – it’s the committees’ role, redo the regional agreement

Weston – otherwise, we’ll have to have the debate here

Dohoney – we need firm leadership out of West Stockbridge and Stockbridge

Clark – we need clarity,

Bannon– let’s get agreement updated,

Clark – renovate high school, two task forces,

Bannon —  high quality education with thoughtful use of resources

Clark – we act like money is infinite

Weston – that’s probably an extreme statement

Potter – that’s an extreme statement

Dohoney – we haven’t spent a penny more than what we’ve needed to do for our town

Clark – I want a renovated school in five years

Bradway – three tracked approach of equal importance

Mooney – what happened to the three task forces?

Bannon – if we want high school to be renovated in our lifetime, if not task force than what?

Clark – HS and operating budget

Bannon– budget will be very high

Bannon – we will revisit before 1st of year

Dohoney – regional amend committee may pick up that energy

Bradway – why do we have to wait on what we’re doing with the building?

Dohoney – only so much oxygen in room, focus is more concrete, equitable allocation of costs

Clark – we never do a master plan

Bannon – everything relies on different groups, other towns, voters on high school, we don’t hold all of our fate in our own hands

Good educational plan in Marianne’s office, we need a new plan to explain our plan

Clark – we’re going about it in little pieces

Dohoney – What should the plan be

Clark — education is good but we cannot afford, solve issues of financing

Bradway – I don’t disagree, we’ve been deferring building things for years, we need to stop deferring and work through aging building

Piasecki – part of risk that community took when they voted it down

Bannon —  I’d like to end discussion, we actually conferred

Bradway – we voted to do three tracks

Dohoney –

Motion to adjourn Weston and Piasecki

Opposed Dohoney and Bradway

Vote to adjourn at 8:57PM

Respectfully submitted by Peter Dillon 10/2/15